Monday, April 14, 2014

On Tuesday, Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch are expected to announce their official campaign for reelection. You know, the one that they've been running for two years now. Except now it's official.

One can expect the usual lies and fabrications that they have done such a great job creating jobs, cutting taxes, protecting the environment and bringing all sorts of freedoms to the people. It'll be enough to gag a maggot.

But one of the biggest lies that they will tell that day is one that will be unspoken.

Walker and Kleefisch are going to be up on the stage acting like they are part of one big happy team. This, of course, couldn't be any farther from the truth.

And I'm not referring to the purge/exodus that is happening in the Republican Party right now.

I'm talking about Scooter and Becky.

If the gentle reader would remember, two years ago, when Kelly Rindfleisch was supposedly "working" as a Milwaukee County employee, namely as Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff. Even though she was supposed to be a county employee, by Rindfleisch's own words, we learned that she had spent "half her time" working on the campaign for Brett Davis, who was running as lieutenant governor.

As Rindfleisch went through her trial, we learned that not only was she working for Davis, but so were a lot of other people. So much so that it quickly became apparent that Davis was Walker's preference in being his lieutenant governor. I wondered at the time, and have done so several times since, how did this make Kleefisch feel, knowing she was second fiddle:

The other thing that I question is, if Davis was indeed the first choice for Lt. Gov by Walker and WISGOP, I wonder how Walker's relationship with Rebecca Kleefisch really is. Is she aware that Walker apparently had his people working for Davis? If so, does she trust Walker?

What is her relationship with the party like?

Kleefisch sure hasn't done much publicly, either as Lt. Governor or as a politician.. To me, this could indicate a possible trust issue going in either direction, or even both directions, between her and Walker and her and the WISGOP machinery.

It seemed like Kleefisch's feelings regarding this was a moot point. At least until last month.

Obviously, Kleefisch won the primary and went on to be Walker's Lieutenant Governor. Walker gave Davis the consolation prize of being appointed as the state's medicaid director.

But then things changed

In March, the emails and documents that were the basis for the charges filed against Rindfleisch were released to the public. These emails revealed that Davis was not only Walker's lieutenant governor of choice, but Walker's and Davis' people didn't care for Kleefisch at all, and would often complain about her and ridicule her.

Within three weeks of this new coming out, Davis suddenly resigned his cushy director's position for a mystery job in the private sector.

I've seen some people speculate that Davis' sudden departure was due to the Walkergate investigations. That theory, however, doesn't make sense since Davis was in the position for three years before leaving. If the investigation was the reason, he would have left years ago.

The timing of it would make it seem that Davis was forced out by Kleefisch, who was no longer able to deny that she wasn't Walker's - or the Party's - first choice.

The fact that Walker is well known to be all about image and not substance, it would make sense that he would sacrifice Davis in order to keep up the appearance of he and Kleefisch being part of one big, happy family.

Oh, but how he must pine for what might have been though...

And don't worry about Davis. He landed well as one might have expected.

It was just announced last week that Davis is now the Vice-President of Provider Relations for WPS, a health care giant that has many lucrative contracts with the state, not only as a health care carrier but also as a third party payer for Medicaid-related services. (Gee, do you think Davis had a hand in that contract?)

It's nice to see Walker take care of both the lieutenant governor he has and the lieutenant governor he really wanted.

WPS can go piss up a rope. 14 years ago they denied us family health coverage because my wife was "outside the height and weight guidelines" even though there were no major pre-existing conditions or medical history to indicate she would be high risk. It figures one of Walker's butt buddies would find refuge within such an organization after he successfully helped refuse Medicaid funding from the Feds. What a useless tool!